Scramble!

Here in Northern Washington we had well over 3 months without rain.  Every glorious day was followed by an equally delightful glorious day.  The sun shone, the ground was warm and our grapes flourished.

Thursday of last week things changed.  Without warning (just because it was October was not warning enough!) the nights cooled and a hard frost hit our vines. 

It was time to pick.  NOW.  A second frost could easily ruin the grapes. Unfortunately the unexpected frost also hit our potatoes.  Although it would have been nice to leave them in the ground for a few more weeks the frost left their tops shriveled and dead.  It was time to pick those too.  Unfortunately we had to go out of town on Friday.  AAARRGGHH!

Peter started picking grapes and I tackled the potatoes.  Once the grapes were collected we started washing and plucking (that's removing the grapes from the stems), then we smashed them and got them in the barrel.  At 2:30 in the morning we still weren't done but exhaustion won and we called it a night.  The following day we rose early and continued washing and smashing until we got 'em done, finally leaving town at 4:30 p.m.   We have about 15 gallons of Pinot in the Pot.  Haha.. Maybe that's what we should name it!  Pinot in the Pot Wine.

My fingers were stained purple and I gleefully danced the happy dance at the idea that we were finally finished. Peter thought I was weird.  Oh well.

Of course, silly me, I had forgotten that we also have other grapes that were not hit by the frost - but WERE in danger from the threatening rain.  This week we scrambled to get the "barn grapes" picked.  The trellis they are on has collapsed from the weight of the grapes.  Peter picked high and I picked low, crawling around on my knees under the trellis.  I mingled with spiders and spider webs and horrid earwigs.  (I hate earwigs more than spiders and snakes and Jaywalkers and litterbugs.  Seriously.  Earwigs will make me crazy.  The other day one got on me and I screamed and jerked.  It fell to the floor where I stomped on it 6 or 7 times.  A bit overkill maybe but you can never be too sure when it comes to earwigs!)

But I digress.  We picked 6 bins full of grapes.

And the rain hit hard.  We had another marathon washing, plucking and smashing session.  We were up until well past midnight last night but managed to get them done!  We have about 30 gallons of this one.   I'm kind of afraid to do the happy dance again - but I'm doing it in my head. 

I was thinking that if you add in the hours spent weeding, and pruning and tending the grapes, plus the hours spent MAKING the wine, we would need to charge about $80.00 a bottle just to break even.  Luckily we aren't planning on selling it.